Swirl, Sip, Snark is Tearing Up The Wine Trail (With Bonus Introspection)
Attempting to set the record for most winery visits in one month, the Bloggers at Swirl Sip Snark have been blasting out a ton of posts on Virginia Wineries over the past few weeks. The writers over there are pretty blunt, so you know you’ll be getting an un-abashed review of the ins and outs of whatever winery they blew through that day. They just turned in a glowing review of Del Fosse Winery which I had not yet heard of
The ’06 Viognier Reserve is a spectacular wine. What’s really strange is that it’s an all-stainless steel wine, yet I really got the flavors of tropical fruit… on a Danish.
Side note, when I started this blog, I pictured it to be very similar to the stuff that Swirl, Sip, Snark is putting out. I’d visit wineries every weekend, introduce myself, chat with the owner and winemaker. Write up glowing (but fair) reviews in my blog which would become the bellwether for Virginia’s burgeoning wine industry. I’d sit on panels and say interesting things about the late weather in 2007 and its effect on the Cab Franc harvest in Charlottesville. The audience would nod, because they don’t know any better. Wine samples and invites to events would pour through my mailbox causing my UPS delivery person to crumble under the weight of my awesomeness.
Things didn’t quite bounce that way, evidently. I still like visiting wineries, but I realized a few things since I started:
1) Virginia is far, and anything involving travel on 495/66 should be forgotten. You may as well take a flight from BWI to Dulles and rent a car.
2) Most wineries are the same. There hasn’t been a lot of impetus to get off the couch and drive down there to taste.
Snark that!
August 24th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Thanks for the mention! In response to your two points:
1) Amen to that. You’re to be forgiven for not hitting more VA wineries, since you’re in MD. You’ll notice we haven’t hit any Maryland wineries- same problem, different direction.
2) On this point… you gave me a great idea for a future post. I’ll have to get on that!
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 am
That’s a fair excuse for skipping MD wineries, aside from the obvious